Thursday, December 31, 2009

Detroit goal (1-0) 13:48 1st period; Miller from Lebda & Draper:This goal is a result of Drew Miller's tremendous speed. Well, a luck bounce off of a man in front of the net helps, but it's mostly because of speed. Miller forechecks hard and gets the Stars player to turn the puck over. He then banks a shot in by shooting at the Dallas defender.

Dallas goal (1-1) 19:45 in 1st period; Morrow from Robidas & Daley:In all the video I've been watching, there's one disturbing trend that keeps popping up. A good number of the times Detroit gets scored on close to the net are a result of one man slipping by unchecked by the defense. That's exactly what happens here. A Dallas player moves up from behind the net, gets position in front of the net but behind the defender, and tips the puck when it's shot from the point.

Detroit goal (2-1) 5:35 in 2nd period; Helm from Draper & Bertuzzi:Draper, who is moving quickly down the right wing boards, sees a wide open Helm across the ice and to the left of the crease. He threads a pass through, and Helm buries it.

Detroit goal (3-1) 12:06 in 2nd period; Cleary from Zetterberg & Holmstrom:Cleary makes a pretty gutsy pass from below the left faceoff circle up to the right point. Rafalski gets the puck off a bounce from the boards and unleashes a slap shot. Homer tips it to the side of the net and Cleary scraps and scores on the left side.

Detroit goal (4-1) 3:35 in 3rd period; Bertuzzi from Datsyuk:Bertuzzi picks the top right corner and puts a perfect shot on net. Turco can't stop the shot, though he does make a move towards the puck.

Monday, December 21, 2009

St. Louis goal (1-0) 13:24 in 1st period; Backes from Perron & Sydor:Perron puts a shot on net from the middle of the zone, and Backes gets his stick on it. He deflects it into the net, beating Howard five-hole. I have two complaints here; first, Ericsson has position on his guy at first and gives it, and this leads to the goal. Second, how many times have I had to write "Howard gets beat five-hole?" This is obviously a weakness. Now we just have to hope that Jim Bedard recognizes this as well and works with Jimmy in practice on it.

St. Louis goal (2-0) 17:22 in 1st period; Polak from Backes & Kariya:Howard has not chance of seeing this shot. There are four guys crammed into the crease area, and all are directly in front of Howard. There's a slap shot from the blue line and, as expected, it gets tipped into the net. I guess with that many guys in front the shot could just as easily been stopped by a player instead of deflected off a stick, but the Blues get some puck luck here and the latter occurs. Paul Kariya makes a veteran move and gets his stick high before the shot. It's hard to tell whether his stick was above the crossbar, but it looks like he brought it down right before the puck hit the stick. Credit where credit's due, that was a pretty smart play on Kariya's part.

Detroit goal (2-1) 2:35 in 2nd period; PPG Holmstrom from Zetterberg & Datsyuk:The Wings are on the power play, which causes the Blues to be in a box formation on defense. All four guys start to shift towards Datsyuk, who's on the left boards. Dats sees that Zetterberg is wide open across the ice and threads a perfect pass to him. Zetterberg passes to Holmstrom in front of the net instead of shooting, because one of the defenders has turned and moved towards Zetterberg in time to cut off any good scoring chance. The pass hits Holmstrom's stick perfectly and Homer puts it away to the side of the net.

Detroit goal (2-2) 2:27 in 3rd period; Draper from Eaves & Helm:Helm puts the puck on net, and the puck hits the tangled up Wings and Blues players in front of the crease. It falls down, and a flying Draper shovels it into the net.

St. Louis goal (3-2) 8:32 in 3rd period; Boyes from Perron & McDonald:A pretty crappy goal to give up. St. Louis mucks around in front of scores because of some defensive miscues by the Wings. Lidstrom has to cover two guys in the crease, and he picks the one he must think is most likely to get the rebound. Unfortunately, he guessed wrong because the other guy ends up getting the rebound and chop-chop-chops at the puck until he scores.

Detroit goal (3-3) 19:03 in 3rd period; Zetterberg from Bertuzzi & Holmstrom:After giving up an effort goal to St. Louis, the Wings get one of their own. There's a bunch of pushing and shoving in front of the net, but the important part is this: Zetterberg backhands a shot in front of the net from the right corner. The puck hits Blues defenseman Barret Jackman in the chest and is redirected into the top right corner of the net. The goaltender is looking for the puck in the bottom left corner (?), so he never even sees it go in.

Calgary goal (1-0) 00:28 in 1st period; Lundmark from Jokinen & Iginla:Rafalski is shadowing a Calgary player who he picked up on the left side but is moving to the right side, which is the side Rafi is supposed to be on. He runs into Lidstrom in front of the net, which means that neither player is able to properly cover their man. Obviously this creates an opportunity for Calgary. This allows the Calgary player to make a pass through traffic in front of the net, and he's a little lucky it lands on the stick of his teammate, who banks it in to the net.

Calgary goal (2-0) 18:29 in 1st period; Dawes from Moss:Really bad luck. Realllllly bad luck. That's what leads to this goal, which just as easily could have been cleared from the zone. The puck gets deflected off of Jonathan Ericsson's stick on a cross zone pass. Eaves gets the puck and is going to clear it off into the corner, but there's a Calgary player who literally takes it off his stick and backhands it into the net.

Calgary goal (3-0) 00:25 in 3rd period; Jokinen from Lundmark & Iginla:Lids makes a heck of a play on the puck as Calgary enters the zone. The puck deflects up into the air, where a Calgary players catches it, puts it down, and passes to a wide open man. He unleashes a nasty wrist shot that beats Ozzie high glove side.

Atlanta goal (1-0) 5:02 in 1st period; Antropov from Afinogenov & Kozlov:A complete defensive break down leads to a goal that's way too easy. Ville Leino gets caught playing too far up in the zone and isn't able to catch Antropov as he streaks towards the goal. Jimmy Howard is unable to get across the crease in time to stop the puck, and Antropov just taps the puck in off a nice cross-crease pass from Afinogenov.

Atlanta goal (2-0) 9:08 in 2nd period; Kozlov from Kovalchuk & White:This one was admittedly very pretty. Kovalchuk threads a needle from blue line to blue line, finding Kozlov in between Lidstrom and Rafalski. Kozlov has a step on both of the d-men and he's off to the races as soon as he gets the puck. Kozlov makes one move and beats Howard five-hole.

Friday, December 11, 2009

The NHL part of the Fanhouse blog has an interesting article about whether Jimmy Howard is outplaying Christ Osgood. Honestly, I just really like the save percentage charts in the article. Check it out here.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Dan Cleary was injured in the third period of last night's shutout loss to the Blues, which makes him the sixth regular rotation Wing to be out of the lineup. Reports are being published today that Cleary could be out for around a month. The disparity between this year's roster and last year's roster is striking. At this point, the most I'm hoping for is for the Wings to just hold on and keep themselves within striking distance of the playoffs while they wait for their everyday guys to step back into the lineup. It's truly a sad day in Detroit hockey, as we're at the point where we're basically fielding Grand Rapids East. I know that Ken Holland has reiterated recently that he won't be making any moves, but if this keeps up then the Wings hand might be forced. Only time will tell.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

I apologize for the lack of In Reviews that've been posted (well, actually they've not been posted) over the last 10 days or so. I'm working on it slowly but surely, so your patience is appreciated. That is, assuming anyone reads this.

About Me

Adam is a U of M grad who learned how to hold a hockey stick from watching Fedorov and the Wings on their '97 Cup run. He hasn't looked back since. Or skated, but that's beside the point. His ultimate goal is to provide the most thorough goal-by-goal and statistical analysis of Red Wings hockey on the internet. Follow the blog on Twitter @TOGBlog1